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Donna Brooks
Donna Brooks Quick Facts
Main Areas: Yoga and somatic movement as body based life coaching and help for nerurological and nervous susytem ailmentsBest Sellers: My work in person - through small groups, seminars or individual lessons
Career Focus: teacher, speaker since 1981
Affiliation: Boston University Parkinson's Center
I have always loved movement. As a chíld, I twisted my body in all sorts of pretzel positions, only to later realize I was intuiting yoga poses. As a young woman I studied ballet, modern dance, and Hatha Yoga. One of only a handful of Yoga teachers in Washington D.C., I built a practice that included dancers, activists, and politicians. I also devoted myself to the study of Iyengar Yoga with John Schumacher and later with Karin Stephan in Boston.
Teaching Yoga sparked my passion to learn everything I could about the moving body. I went on to learn foundations of Feldenkrais work, had tutorials with Somatics pioneer Thomas Hanna, and studied with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen at the School for Body Mind Centering. I also have learned about the geometry and physics of movement and momentum with tennis pro Art Carrington and through Contact Improvisation. These approaches embody in me an effortless, fluid grace I endeavor to bring into my teaching. They allow me more plasticity, dimensionality, resiliency, and integration in everything I teach, from Yoga postures to walking, lifting, and athletics.
I moved to Western Massachusetts in 1986 and continued to teach. My teaching style became more flexible and creative because my student population grew to include high school athletes as well as people with MS, cancer survivors, and HIV/AIDS patients.
My experience led me to design materials and lead classes for elderly tenants and staff through MassHousing, the Holistic Nursing Association certification program, and for Kaiser Permanente where I taught Yoga for Menopause. I have also taught at the University of Massachusetts, Greenfield Community College, Charlemont Academy, Norwich College, the Hartsbrook School, and Mohawk Valley Education Services. I have spoken at conferences along the Eastern Seaboard and have been invited to teach at Omega Institute.
Today, my practice is varied. Some people come to me because they want to be more poised, powerful, confident, and serene in their movement and lives. Others are learning how to walk again after stroke, injury, or surgery. Others simply want to study Yoga with me because of the depth of my experience. I welcome all students and have a deep commitment to meeting each of you with all my clarity, integrity, experience, and compassion. I feel it's both my calling and privilege to facilitate ease, strength, and integration in the body.
Favorite Quotes & Thoughts from Donna Brooks
For many years the words integrity and ease have been the compass for how I work with my students bodies.
At its essence, integrity reflects a state of being complete and undivided. Integrity lets you body move as an integrated whole, supporting pleasurable, fun, functional and pain free movement. True bodily integrity can also generate a wonderful harmony in your heart and soul.
Ease is that marvelous state of feeling comfortable, care-free and free from constraint. This is so important because we often create new constraints in our bodies and minds even as we work to release old ones!
I invite you to join me in exploring the supportive balance of integrity and ease in your life.
Getting Started With Donna Brooks
Using gentle, rhythmic and developmental movements, fun circular fitness, yoga, visual modeling, sensitive hands-on work,and an approach that induces brain states conducive to rapid learning and deep relaxation, I help connect your mind and body through an easy fluid integration that makes living in your body satisfying, pleasurable, and fun.
Explore this with me by becomming my friend on facebook or signing up to recieve newsletters on my website: www.originalbodywisdom.com
